Saturday, November 21, 2009

'The Little Engine that Could' Celebrates 25 Years

By Rosalie Rayburn
Copyright © 2009 Albuquerque Journal
Journal Staff Writer
          The little hospital that could turned 25 this year.
        Lovelace Westside Hospital has weathered corporate buyouts, service cutbacks and changes in the medical insurance climate and still remains the only hospital in the West Side Albuquerque/Rio Rancho area.
        That situation is expected to change soon. Presbyterian Healthcare Services and the University of New Mexico have pledged to open hospitals in Rio Rancho by the end of 2012.
        Presbyterian and UNM have said they are responding to the needs of an under-served population. The same argument swayed the state health planning bureau in the early 1980s to open a hospital on Albuquerque's West Side.
        The result was the St. Joseph West Mesa Hospital, run by the sisters of Charity Health Care Systems of Cincinnati, Ohio. Opened in July 1984, the $19 million hospital had an emergency room, five operating rooms, 100 adult beds, including an intensive care/coronary care unit, eight pediatric beds and a 20-bed obstetrical unit.
        Archive materials supplied by Lovelace showed that in its first month, the hospital had 194 emergency room visits, 104 admissions and 21 births. The first baby born there was Katie Lee Webb.
        West Mesa Hospital's birthing center, which enabled families to be with birthing mothers, was avant garde for its time and drew patients from as far away as Santa Fe and Grants, said Steve Komadina, an obstetrician who worked at the hospital from its opening until 2001.
        "The highlight of my entire medical career was the first five to 10 years at the West Mesa Hospital. It was one of those places you could walk anywhere and talk to people and get things done. It was not a place you got lost in the shuffle," Komadina said.
        Miraculous existence
        Yet the hospital's small size, and the still relatively small size of the population it served, proved a stumbling block in the long run.
        Albuquerque planning department figures show the combined population of the West Mesa north of I-40 and Rio Rancho was about 36,300 in 1980 and 43,700 a decade later.
        Between 1995 and 2000, dialysis, intensive care, birthing and surgical services were shifted from the West Mesa Hospital to other St. Joseph facilities in Albuquerque. The emergency room was expanded.
        At the time, many physicians deplored the changes, saying it would mean longer commutes for area patients, especially the elderly.
        "People would have died trying to get to a hospital Downtown if it hadn't been for the West Mesa Hospital," Komadina said.
        He sees its continued existence as nearly miraculous.
        "This hospital is like the little engine that could," Komadina said. "It's probably a miracle that it's still alive now."
        He maintains that the growing dominance of managed health care insurance organizations in the late 1980s and 1990s, which tended to push physicians and patients toward larger hospitals, helped undermine the West Mesa Hospital.
        Others say the decision made economic sense because of the difficulties of supporting specialists with such a small population base.
        "That facility was always a challenge," said Philip Froman, a former medical director at West Mesa.
        Carl Connors who practiced obstetrics and gynecology at West Mesa from 1992 to 2003, said much of the time he could have been seeing patients was spent driving from the Downtown or Northeast Heights St. Joseph hospital to and from the West Mesa hospital.
        Changing hands
        In 2002, a major shift in the opposite direction began.
        Nashville-based Ardent Health Services took over the Albuquerque-area St. Joseph Healthcare hospitals from then-owner Catholic Health Initiatives. The purchase required a name change, and the facility eventually became the West Mesa Medical Center.
        Ardent also bought Lovelace Health Systems and in 2005, the hospital was renamed the Lovelace Westside Hospital.
        The ownership change led to an influx of investment. Since 2002, more than $20 million has been poured into expanding and renovating the emergency department, reopening operating rooms' in-patient beds and digital imaging equipment.
        Hospital CEO Troy Greer said the hospital now has 54 in-patient beds and six operating rooms, it averages 25 in-patients daily, performs about 300 surgeries per month and will have about 23,000 emergency room visits this year.
        "It is interesting to recognize some of the same things today as 25 years ago," Greer said. "Citizens have needed health care, the challenge has been to grow and meet the needs of the community. We've had some bumps in the road. Now I think we're on a good track."
        He sees room for competition with the Presbyterian and UNM hospitals, citing the explosive population growth seen in the West Side and Rio Rancho in recent years. Rio Rancho is now the state's third largest city with a population of nearly 80,000.
        Timeline
        Lovelace Westside Hospital turned 25 years old this year. Here are some of the landmarks in its history.
        • January 1983: hospital groundbreaking.
        • July 1984: 128-bed, $19 million hospital opened as St. Joseph West Mesa Hospital.
        • 1995-1999: dialysis, intensive care, birthing services and surgical services moved to other St. Joseph facilities in Albuquerque.
        • 2000: St. Joseph Healthcare announced $5 million operating loss and dwindling patient volume.
        • 2002: Nashville-based Ardent Health Services buys St. Joseph Healthcare's Albuquerque hospitals from Catholic Health Initiatives and later purchases Lovelace Health System.
        • 2003: Hospital becomes West Mesa Medical Center as part of new Lovelace Sandia Health System.
        • 2003: $12 million investment program launched to expand ER and restore other services.
        • 2005: Renamed Lovelace Westside Hospital as part of Lovelace Health System.
        • 2008 $4 million to bring digital imaging to Lovelace Westside Hospital.
       

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